The Roubaud Connection (Genevieve Lenard, #12)

“It’s not necessary.” Caelan squeezed the stress balls harder.

“Oh, it is, superman,” Vinnie said. “Let Franny do her magic. Then you can see if you know them.”

“You don’t know who they are?”

“No, we don’t.” Daniel’s tone was gentle. “And it will definitely help us if we have their names.”

“Done.” Francine turned her tablet, but then pulled it away again, looking at Caelan. “I cleaned it up as best I could, but you’ll still see they were badly beaten up.”

Caelan nodded and squeezed the balls a few times. “Okay. Show me.”

Francine tilted her tablet towards Caelan, the frontalis muscle raising her inner eyebrows in concern.

“The Sargasso Sea is the only sea without any coasts.” Caelan closed his eyes tightly, his hands frantically squeezing the balls. “The Pacific Ocean basin is home to seventy-five percent of the world’s volcanoes. I know them. It’s Camille Vastine and Martin Gayot. They’re also members of the geocaching group. That’s Camille’s favourite sweater. She always wore it.”

Pink was already putting the names into his tablet when Vinnie knocked on the table close to Caelan. “You really are a superman, dude.”

“Did you know them well?” Daniel asked.

“No. Jace met up with them a few times. I didn’t want to. I don’t like meeting new people. Jace did. He wore his glasses so I could watch them when they met for coffee. They were nice to Jace. They were nice. Mexico has more pyramids than Egypt.”

“And they were part of the geocaching group,” Colin said.

“Yes. Jace and I were the best team. Especially when it came to the caches that weren’t easy to find. Camille and Martin were also good. Very good. They were second best. Now there’s no one left. Only me.”

I thought about Camille’s and Martin’s connection to Jace and Adèle. “Did Camille and Martin go to Self-Storage Solutions to look for that cache with the ‘e’?”

Caelan nodded. “They got there forty minutes after Jace.”

“Oh, my God.” Francine’s eyes were wide. “I see where you’re going with this. I mean, we already think the killer saw the security footage from the warehouse. That must be how he knew Jace took the crates. But this must also be how he knew to look for Camille and Martin.”

“We need to get the names of the other people in your group.” Manny straightened. “Do you have a list?”

“What group?” Caelan glanced at Manny’s shoulder.

“Your geocaching group.”

“I can’t give you their names.” He shook his head repeatedly. “They’ll never trust me again.”

“Then they are not as smart as they think.” I hoped logic would convince Caelan. “You’ll be saving their lives by giving us their names.”

He thought about this for a few seconds, nodded and started rattling off names.

“Whoa, there.” Daniel chuckled. “Give us a moment to make notes.”

Caelan repeated the names he’d already given, slower and waiting for Daniel to nod before he gave the next one. Pink put them all in his tablet.

“Do you want everyone in France or only the people in Strasbourg?” Caelan asked after he’d given the nineteenth name.

“Only Strasbourg.” Daniel looked at Pink and Francine. “Did you find any other crimes with the same MO in other cities?”

“Nope.” Francine winked at him. “How did you know I looked?”

“You always do.” He smiled at her, then looked at Manny. “I’ll mobilise teams to get these people to safety. It might take a while though.”

“Good luck with that.” Manny didn’t look sincere. “I’ll stay here and keep this lot safe.”

Vinnie snorted and Manny’s head jerked up. His eyes narrowed and he inhaled sharply, but a foreign notification tone caught his attention. Caelan took his phone from his trouser pocket and swiped the screen. “Russia spans eleven time zones. Australia is wider than the moon.”

“For the love of all that is holy.” Manny slumped deeper into his chair. “Now what?”

“The countdown finished.” Caelan turned his smartphone so we could see his screen. On it was the interface for the application he used for the geocaching. Large red numbers were in the centre of the screen.

“Do you know what that is?” Colin asked.

Caelan turned his smartphone back and looked at the screen. “It’s a GPS location. Jace gave me a GPS location.”





Chapter THIRTEEN






“Holy hell!” Manny squinted at the monitors in front of us. “Is that—”

“We’re in Jace’s basement.” Vinnie’s voice was clear over the speakers. He had joined Daniel’s GIPN team to go to the GPS location Caelan had received. Phillip had taken Caelan to his office when it had become clear that the young man wasn’t coping with this new information. He was missing his friend and the GPS location caused him great distress.

It had also caused a few minutes of intense debate until everyone agreed that Daniel would ask the other GIPN teams to get all the members of Caelan’s geocaching group to safety. Daniel, Pink and Vinnie had left immediately after they’d assured me that I could receive live streaming when they found and entered the location.

I watched as Vinnie followed Daniel into the dim space, their guns swinging from side to side, their nonverbal cues clearly communicating their readiness to take action if needed. Three seconds later, the tension in Daniel’s muscles decreased and he lowered his rifle. “All clear.”

“Well? Let’s see what’s in that bloody basement.” Manny had received a call just after Vinnie had left. He’d been in an even more disagreeable mood since. Behind the posturing, his grief was clear. I didn’t know what to do.

So I returned my focus to the monitors and gripped Colin’s hand. He was quiet next to me.

“I count eight crates.” Vinnie pointed at the wooden crates in the centre of the room. They were in the same place they had been on Jace’s video.

“And we know that Jace took eight.” Daniel swung his assault rifle over his shoulder and rested his hand on his holstered handgun. “We have these eight, but where are the four crates that Adèle took?”

His question was in the forefront of my mind. But I had many other questions too. “Are all the wine bottles still in the crates?”

Vinnie moved towards the crates, but Daniel held out his hand to stop him. “I think we need to get the bomb squad in here first before we open anything. Just to be safe.”

“That’s going to take forever.” Manny hunched his shoulders.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Daniel glanced at Vinnie’s button camera, which made it appear as if he was looking at us. “We’ll try to make this as quick as possible though.”

“I want the bottles.” I saw Daniel reacting with a slight frown and collected my thoughts to be clearer. “I want to study all the bottles. I think their labels might give us important information.”

“I don’t think I can get you the bottles very soon, Genevieve.” Daniel turned to look at the crates. “If these bottles contain liquid heroin like the one we found in Adèle’s house, we won’t be able to handle them without all of them first being processed. Will photos do?”

I considered this. “The photos will have to be of the highest quality. I need to see every detail of the labels.”

“I’ll do that as soon as the bomb squad clears the room.” Daniel tilted his head and thought about this some more. “I might get our hazmat team in here as well. I’ve heard of cops dying from overdoses when they handled confiscated drugs. Rather safe than sorry.”

Manny scowled. “How long is this drama going to take? We need those labels, Daniel.”

Daniel’s eyebrows rose slightly, but it was Vinnie who answered. “Back off, old man. Go drink some milky tea or something. Just get off this fucking line and let us do our jobs.”

“Us? Our? What, you think you’re bloody law now?”

I leaned away from Manny. The anger in his voice was most disturbing.

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